Natural disasters, military battles, acts of civil unrest or riot, refugee camps, and epidemics are marked by medical emergencies. Most occur at sites remote from traditional fixed medical treatment facilities such as hospitals or clinics. It is critical to reducing fatalities to provide medical treatment and emergency surgery to stabilize injuries within the first few hours after occurrence, with the best chance of recovery being if that treatment is provided within an hour. This critical time period is called "the golden hour".
While the military has tent-type field "hospitals", such as popularized in the TV series MASH, and well-trained paramedics for battlefield triage and recovery of the wounded, such units are typically general purpose field tents housing surgical equipment rather than being special use facilities designed and constructed to support the requirements of modern emergency surgery and treatment. Such tent medical facilities can take a minimum team of 6-10 soldiers up to a day to erect and make operational.
Further, the current civilian and military systems rely on triage and stabilization near the site of injury, and relies on helicopter or other evacuation to rear field hospitals. The elapsed time to medical treatment to stabilize injuries and emergency surgery, while desired to be as short as possible, is typically over an hour away
There is no similar civilian system for natural disaster medical support such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, typhoons, forest fires, bombings, chemical or germ incidents, and the like.